the folksy, jazz and country-inspired rock of she & him is essentially the soundtrack to lounging lazily on a blanket in your yard, smelling vaguely of sunscreen with red-chipped nail polish on your fingers and a portable 8-track player by your side.
i fell in love with the paris movie theatre in new york during my first visit to see paris je t'aime sometime last year. it plays only one movie at a time (usually for a matter of weeks or months) and empties out into a beautiful part of a city. button your coat as you leave, shuffle past the plaza, and suddenly, you're in the midst of central park. anyhow, i saw perhaps my favorite movie that i've seen this year there, les chansons d'amour (love songs). a review of it noted that you didn't just like the director's films, you developed weird little crushes on them. it was certainly the case. beautiful stories, songs, and yup, lead actor, louis garrel (*swoon*).
every other review i read compared it to a new wave musical from the sixties, called les parapluies de cherbourg (the umbrellas of cherbourg), which i rented immediately. whereas love songs was dark and lovely, umbrellas painted exactly the sort of romantic, candy-colored dream state that i tend to pursue. genveive, the main character, works in a tiny, cotton candy pink umbrella shop, so whenever i've worked in my pint-sized pink shop on rainy days, i've smiled goofily to myself, as though it were my own inside joke.
a picture's worth a thousand words: the concert by marc chagall
i've always loved a good magazine and my new favorite is a british fashion magazine called lula . unlike some stiff and terribly unoriginal magazines, it's wonderfully dreamy, for the sorts of nice girls who spent their early teenaged years taking pictures of their feet.
recently, i've been infatuated with a rock band from california, princeton. sixties-inspired rock sounds from california and britian have always made me love music so.
nostalgia: my dear friend, susie took this picture of a wonderland of a bookshop that we lived just across from, in virginia. it's underground and filled with every manner of mermaid possible, as well as an amazing array of old and rare books. this image reminds me of just how enchanted our home is: cobblestoned streets, haunted places, bicycles, sunken gardens, terraces, constellations, beautiful seasons.
